
iHK lUiD OF JOHN BROWN^ 



AT HARPER'S ^^^Sl.,^^^. 
AS ! SAW IT^^^^^^ 

f REV, ^^AMURL VAI^DERLIP LEECH. 'i:^.Mm^ 




Class 

Book. 

Copyright N°. 



COPYKIGIIT DEPOSIT. 



The Raid of John Brown at Harper's 
Ferry As I Saw It. 



BY 

REV. SAMUEL VANDERLIP LEECH, D. D. 



Autbor of "higersoll ami The "Bible;' ''The Three Inebriates;' "From IVest 
Virginia to Pompeii;'' "Seven Elements in Siiccessfnl Preaching;' Etc. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 



The DeSoto 

Washington, D. C. 

19()» 






Copyright by S. V. I,eech, 1909.) 



©'ai.i\:^5iS8 







4 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S 
FERRY AS I SAW IT. 



■Br REl^. SAMUEL yANDERLlP LEECH, D. D. 




HE town of Harper's Ferry is located in Jefferson 
County. AVest A^irginia. Lucerne, in Switzerland 
does not excel it in romantic grandeur of situation. 
On its northern front the Potomac sweeps along to 
pass the national capital, and the tomb of AA'ashington. in 
its silent flow towards the sea. On its eastern side the 
Shenandoah hurries to empty its waters into the Potomac, 
that in perpetual wedlock they may greet the stormy At- 
lantic. Across the Potomac the IMaryland Heights stand out 
as the tall sentinels of Nature. Beyond the Shenandoah are 
the Blue Ridge mountains, fring:ing- the w^estward boundary 
of Loudon County. Virginia. Between these rivers, and 
nestling: inside of their very confluence, reposes Harper's 
Ferry. Back of its hills lies the famous Shenandoah Valley, 
celebrated for its natural scenery, its historic battles and 
"Sheridan's Ride." At Harper's Ferry the United States 
authorities early located an Arsenal and an Armory. 

Before the Civil AA^ar, the Baltimore Conference of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church was constituted of five exten- 
sive districts in Virginia, stretching from Alexandria to Lew- 
isburg and two great districts north of the Potomac, in- 
cluding the cities of AA'ashington and Baltimore. The first 
three years of my ministerial life I spent on Shepherdstown, 
AA' est Loudon and Hillsboro Circuits, being then all in Vir- 
ginia. The State of AA'est A'irginia, now embracing Har- 
per's Ferrv, had not been organized by Congress as a war 
measure out of the territory of the mother State. Our ]\Ieth- 
odist Episcopal Church was theoretically an anti-slavery or- 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



ganization ; but our Virginia and INIaryland members held 
thousands of inherited and many purchased slaves. These 
were generally well-cared for and contented. Being close to 
the free soil of Pennsylvania they could have gotten there in 
a night had they wished to escape bondage, and then they 
could have easily reached Canada by that Northern aid, called 
the "Underground Railroad." 

On the Sunday night when John Brown and his men in- 
vaded Virginia, I slept within a half mile of Harper's Ferry. 
That day I inaugurated revival services at my westward ap- 
pointment, called "Ebenezer,'' in Loudon County two miles 
from Harper's Ferry. I was twenty-two years of age. 

Three months before this raid Captain John Brown with 
two of his sons, Owen and Oliver, and Jeremiah G. Ander- 
son, calling themselves "Isaac Smith and Sons" rented a small 
farm on the Maryland side of the Potomac four miles from 
Harper's Ferry. It was known as the "Booth-Kennedy 
Place." They also carried on across the mountains at 
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, a small hardware store man- 
aged by John H. Kagi. It was a depot for the munitions of 
war to be hauled to their Maryland farm. Another of Brown's 
men, John E. Cook, sold maps in the vicinity. He was a rel- 
ative of Governor Willard of Indiana who secured the serv- 
ices of Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, Attorney General of Indi- 
ana, to defend Cook at his after trial in Virginia. It was a 
time of profound national peace. Brown and his men rep- 
resented themselves as geologists, miners and speculators. 
They had a mule and wagon with which to haul their boxes 
from Chamberslnirg. A wealthy merchant of Boston, Mr. 
George Luther Stearns, Chairman of the ^Massachusetts Aid 
Society had financed Brown's Kansas border warfare work, 
as well as his approaching Harper's Ferry raid.' Other 
Northern friends assisted. Brown had completed his prep- 
arations and collected his twenty-one helpers early in Oc- 
tober. 1859. He had hidden in an old log cabin on the place 
200 Sharpe's rifles, 13.000 rifle cartridges, 950 long iron pikes, 
200 revolving pistols, 100,000 pistol caps, 40,000 percussion 
caps, 250 pounds of powder, 12 reams of cartridge paper and 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



Other warlike materials. He organized his twenty-two men, 
himself included, into a "Military Provisional Government" 
to superintend the possible uprising of the slaves of \ irginia. 
Thirteen of these men had engaged in border warfare in Kan- 
sas, in a successful effort to prevent Kansas from becoming 
a slave state. He, sixteen other white men and five 
negroes, constituted his entire \'irginia army. The white 
men were Captain John Brown, Adjutant General John H. 
Kagi. Captains Owen Brown, Oliver Brown, AVatson Brown, 
Aaron D. Stephens, John E. Cook. Dauphin Adolphus Thomp- 
son. George P. Tidd. V\'illiam Thompson and Edwin Cop- 
poc. The Lieutenants were Jeremiah G. Anderson. Albert 
Hazlitt and William Henry Leeman. The privates number- 
ed eight. Three of them were white men and five were ne- 
groes. The whites were Francis J. ^Merriam, Barclay Coppoc 
and Steward Taylor. The negroes were Dangerfield Newby, 
Osborne P. Anderson. John A. Cope! and. Sherrard Lewis 
Leary and Shields Green. 

On Sunday miorning, October i6th. 1859. Brown as- 
sembled his men and informed them that on that night their 
invasion into Mrginia would take place. They took the oath 
of allegiance to the "Provisional Government." Adjutant 
General Kagi presented to each offtcer his commission. 

The contents of the Armory. Arsenal and Hall's Rifle 
Works were daily open to public inspection. Captain John 
Brown well knew that Daniel Whelan was the only watch- 
man, during the night time, at the Armory grounds. He be- 
lieved that if he could secure the arms and ammunition m 
these buildings, carry them into the fastnesses of the ad- 
jacent mountains, and then unfurl the flag of freedom for 
all slaves who would flock to his standard, the result would 
be a general uprising of the negro population throughout 
the border states. A more idiotic and senseless theory never 
entered an American mind. In the superlative degree it was 
unreasonable and ridiculous. I personally know of the gen- 
eral loyalty of the slaves to their masters in that locality, 
at that period in our national history. Federal generals were 
astonished at the devotion of the negroes to their masters 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 





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everywhere in the South after the war had begun. This was 
especially true along the border states. But John Brown — 
honest, enthusiastic and intensely fanatical on the slavery 
question — issued his commands. On this Sunday he as- 
signed to each his earliest work. Captain Owen Brown, 
Barclay Coppoc and Francis J. Merriam were to remain at 
the farm to guard the arms and ammunition. Hence only 
nineteen left the Kenned}^ farm. They were to walk down the 
river road on the j\laryland side to the Maryland end of the 
Baltimore and Ohio railroad bridge. The Virginia end was 
close to the depot, hotel. Armory and the Arsenal. Cap- 
tain John Brown was to ride in the wagon with the necessary 
guns, pistols and tools. Captains Cook and Tidd were to go in 
advance and cut the telegraph wires on the Maryland side. 
Captain Stephens and Adjutant General Kagi were to capture 
Mr. AVilliams, the guard of the bridge. Captain Watson Brown 
and Taylor were to hold up the passenger train due from the 
west at I :40 A. M. It would be bound for Washington and 
Baltimore. Captain Oliver Brown and Thompson were to hold 
the bridges spanning the two rivers. Captain Dauphin Adol- 
phus Thompson and Lieutenant Anderson were to hold the 
first building in the Armory grounds popularly known after- 
wards as "John Brown's Fort." It was the engine house 
where Brown held his most distinguished- prisoners. From 
the portholes of it that they made after his entrance, his men 
did their final fighting. Captain Coppoc and Lieutenant 
Hazlitt were to hold the Arsenal outside and opposite the 
Armory gates. Adjutant General Kagi and Copeland were 
to seize and retain Hall's Rifle Works. They were half of 
a mile up the western shore of the Shenandoah. Cap- 
tain Stephens, and such men as he might select, were to go 
out to the home of Colonel Lewis AV. Washington, the grand 
nephew of General George AVashington, and bring him and 
some of his adult male slaves, to the engine house. They 
were also to secure the swords presented to General George 
Washington by Frederick the Great and by General Lafayette. 
For this object Stephens selected as his helpers Captains Tidd 
and Cook and privates Leary, Green and Anderson. BroAvn 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



made the raid at 11:30 that night. ]\Ir. A\'illiams the bridge 
guard was captured by Stephens and Kagi. The w-atchnian 
at the Armory, Daniel \\'helan, refused Brown and his men q-* 

admission to the grounds. They broke the locks with tools, v^^ 

captured AAdielan. and took possession of the Armory and also .j 

of the Arsenal outside. The following prisoners were brought o 

in early on ]Monday and placed in the engine house: Jesse Vv'. ^^ 

Graham who was master workman, Colonel Lewis W. Wash- 't^ 

ington, Terance Byrne. John ]\I. Allstadt, John Donohue, ^ 

who was clerk of the railroad company ; Benjamin F. ?^Iills, h 

the master armorer: Armstead 'SI. Ball, the master machinist; g 

Archibald ]\I. Kitzmiller, assistant superintendent ; Isaac Rus- E^ 

sell, a Justice of the Peace; George D. Shope, of Frederick 
and J. Bird, Arsenal armorer. The white prisoners were to 
be held as hostages and the blacks were to be armed and 
placed in Brown's army. Cook and Tidd evidently mis- 
trusted their surroundings. During the night they made 
their way back to the farm and hastily escaped into Penn- 
sylvania. Captain A\"atson Brown and Taylor held up the 
train bound for Baltimore, detaining it for three hours. The 
colored porter of the depot, Shepherd Hayward, went out 
on the bridge to hunt for V\'illiams. He was brutally shot 
by one of Brown's bridge guards. Flayward managed to crawl 
to the baggage room where he died at noon on ^londay. Dr. 
John Starry dressed his wounds and ministered to his every 
want. The physician was under the impression that a l)and 
of train robbers had captured the depot. He told this to ]\Ir. 
Kitzmiller before Kitzmiller's imprisonment. Captain E. P. 
Dangerfield, clerk to the paymaster, entered the grounds and 
was hustled into the engine house quite early in the morning. 
Numerous arriving workmen were imprisoned in an adjoin- 
ing building. Colonel Washington said that fully sixty men 
were imprisoned by eight o'clock on Monday morning. The 
citizens were hearing of the situation. Xewbv and Green, 
negroes, were stationed at the junction of Fligh and Shen- 
andoah streets. Newby shot at and killed Captain George 
AA'. Turner, a graduate of West Point. Green shot and killed 
Mr. 1']i(imas lioerlev. a grocer. Dr. Claggett attended Boer- 



8 THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 

ley, who also soon died. After the mulatto had shot Turner, 
a man named Bogert entered the residence of Airs. Stephen- 
son by a rear door. Having- no bullet he put a large nail into 
his gun, went up stairs and shot Newby, the nail cutting his 
throat from ear to ear. He was also shot in the stomach by 
some one else. I saw him die, in great agony, with an in- 
furiated crowd around him. About ten o'clock in the morn- 
ing, armed citizens crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah 
rivers to prevent the escape by the bridges, or by water, of any 
of the raiders. Some walked down the Maryland river road 
and wounded Captain Oliver Brown on the bridge. He 
reached the engine house but soon died beside his father. 
Citizens seized the uninjured prisoner, Captain Thompson, 
and put him under guard at the Gait hotel. Captain Stephens 
tried to reach the hotel to propose, as he stated, terms of sur- 
render. George Chambers wounded him, and then assisted 
him into the Gait hotel, ^Vhere his wounds were dressed. 
About eleven o'clock in the morning the Jefiferson Guards 
ifrom Charlestown commanded by Captain J. W. Rowen ar- 
rived. A half hour passed and the Hamtramck guards under 
Captain V. M. Butler came to the Ferry. They were fol- 
lowed by the Shepherdstown Mounted Troop commanded by 
Captain Jacob Reinhart. Then a military company from 
Martinsburg twenty miles distant reached the place, under 
the command of Captain Alburtis. Colonels W. R. Baylor 
and John T. Gibson took the general direction of the military 
affairs. Some soldiers crossed the Shenandoah along with 
armed citizens to intercept the four raiders Kagi, Leary, Lee- 
man and Copeland, when they should be driven out of Hall's 
Rifle Works. These raiders also had in these works one of 
Colonel Washington's slaves pressed into their service. All 
of them ran out into. the river to swim across to the Loudon 
County shore. All were shot to death in the river with the 
exception of Copeland. He threw up his hands and sur- 
rendered. During the excitement Hazlitt and the negro 
Anderson left the Arsenal and, undetected, escaped into Penn- 
sylvania. Early in the morning Captain Owen Brown, Bar- 
clay Coppoc and Merriam had deserted the Kennedv farm 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 9 

and gone north. Thus seven of the twenty-two men fled to 
the North. Cook and Hazlitt were captured. They were re- 
turned to A^irginia, tried and executed. 

By 2 o'clock r. AI., the town and hill.s swarmed with 
militia -and citizens. Brown had barricaded the engine house 
doors with the engine and reel. Inside were Captains John 
Brown and his son Watson ; also Captain Oliver Brown, who 
was soon dead ; Shields Green, Captain Edwin Coppoc, Lieu- 
tenant Jeremiah G. Anderson, Captain Dauphin Adolphus 
Thompson and ten white prisoners. The numerous prison- 
ers, mostly workmen, in the adjoining structure had all es- 
caped from the grounds, Brown having no port-holes on that 
side of his fort. The militia were afraid to fire into the port- 
holes for fear of killing some of the prominent prisoners. 
About 4 o'clock the Mayor. Mr. Fontaine Beckham, aged 
sixty years, who was also station agent of the railroad com- 
pany, went out on the platform unarmed. He was shot dead 
by the negro Shields Green. Captain Watson Brown in the 
engine house received his death Avound soon afterwards. 
Mayor Beckham was very much beloved by the people. A 
number of citizens hurried into the hotel and brutally seized 
Captain Thompson, threw him over the wall into the Po- 
tomac and riddled him with bullets. Mrs. Foulke of the 
hotel, and her colored porter, went to the platform and 
brought in the dead body of the INIayor. 

As night w^as settling on the excited city a military com- 
pany from ^^^inchester, Virginia, commanded by Captain B. 
B. Washington, arrived by a Shenandoah Vallev train. 
Shortly thereafter a Baltimore and Ohio railroad train brought 
several companies of soldiers from Frederick, Maryland. 
They were commanded by Colonel Shriver. Soon several in- 
dependent companies from Baltimore, accompanied by the 
Second Light Brigade, arrived under the general command 
of General Charles C. Edgerton. Colonel Robert E. Lee of 
the United States army, overtook these troops at Sandv Hook, 
a mile and a half below the Ferry on the Marvland side. He 
had come from W^ashington with several companies of ma- 



10 THE RAID OP JOHN BROWN 



rines. He was accompanied by Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, 
afterwards a famous Confederate Cavalry General; also by 
Major Russell and by Lieutenant Lsrael Green, who died sev- 
eral months ago in the West. All were regular army officers. 
Colonel Lee regarded it as unwise to attack the engine house 
that night, fearing that Colonel Lewis W. Washington or 
other prisoners might be killed. Early in the morning he 
sent Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, who had once held Brown as 
a prisoner in Kansas, to demand an immediate and uncondi- 
tional surrender. Brown refused to trust himself and men 
to the United States officers. About this time Colonel Rob- 
ert E. Lee got within range of Captain Coppoc's rifle. Pris- 
oners said that Mr. Graham knocked the muzzle aside. Lee's 
life was saved. Had he been then killed who knows that the 
battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and the final conflicts north 
of the Appomattox would have ever been fought? On the 
Confederate side no abler general or more magnificent man. 
ever sat on a saddle than Robert E. Lee. He was the son of 
"Light Horse Harry Lee," a brave Major General of the Rev- 
olutionary War. He was the father of William Henry Fitz- 
hugh Lee, who became a Major General of the Confederate 
forces of Virginia, at a later date. General Robert E. Lee 
made a brilliant record in the Mexican war as Chief Engineer 
of the United States army. After surrendering his decimated 
army to General Ulysses S. Grant, at Appomattox, he ac- 
cepted the political situation with dignity. He became 
President of the Washington University at Lexington. Vir- 
ginia. The South lavished on him every possible honor. 
During the late summer the Virginia legislature placed in the 
National Hall of Fame, at the LTnited States Capitol, two fine 
statues of two representative men of their state. One was 
the statue of General George Washington; the other that of 
General Robert E. Lee. 

By the advice of Colonel Lewis W. Washington all of 
Brown's prisoners mounted the fire engine and the reel car- 
riage and lifted up their hands when the attack began. Three 
marines undertook to batter down the doors with heavy 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 11- 



sledge hammers. They were not successful. Then twelve 
marines struck the doors with the end of a strong ladder. 
They opened. Lieutenant Green entered iirst of all amidst a 
shower of bullets. Discovering Brown reloading his rifle 
he sprang on him with his sword and cut his head and 
stomach. The raider Captain Anderson rose to shoot Green. 
A marine named Luke Quinn ran his bayonet through him. 
Another raider shot Luke Ouinn who soon died. Two other 
marines were wounded. I saw Captains Anderson and Wat- 
son Brown as they lay dying on the grass after their capture. 
The dead body of Captain Oliver Brown lay beside them. 
Captain A\^atson Brown had been dying for sixteen hours. 
Captain John Brown, bleeding profusely, and Captain Steph- 
ens from the hotel, were carried into the paymaster's office. 
Brown's long grey beard was stained with wet blood. He 
was bare headed. His shirt and trousers were grey in color. 
His trousers were tucked into the top of his boots. Captain 
Coppoc and the negro Green were also taken prisoners. They 
were not wounded. 

As Brown lay on the floor of the paymaster's office he 
was very cool and courageous. Governor Henry A. Wise, 
L^nited States Senator J. M. ]\Iason of Virginia and Honor- 
able Clement L. Vallandingham of Ohio plied him with many 
questions. To' all he gave intelligent and fearless replies. 
He refused to involve his Northern financiers and advisers. 
He took the entire responsibility on himself. He told Gov- 
ernor Wise that he, Brown, was simply "An instrument in 
the hands of Providence." He said to some newspaper cor- 
respondents and others: "1 wish to say that you had better 
— all you people of the South — prepare for a settlement of 
this question. You may dispose of me very easily. I am 
ncarlv disposed of now. But this (piestion is yet to be set- 
tled — this negro question I mean. The end is not yet."' Be- 
fore thirteen months had ])assed one of the greatest Ameri- 
cans of any century, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected 
President of the United States; the Republican party was 
for the first time dominatin-j- national afl'airs and, soon there- 



12 THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



after, the Civil War was begun which cuhiiinated in the 
physical freedom of every slave in this Republic. 

On Wednesday Captains John Brown, Stephens and 
Coppoc, along with Copeland and Green, were removed to 
the county jail at Charlestown, ten miles south of Harper's 
Ferry. Being acquainted with the jailor. Captain John Avis, 
I w^as permitted to visit Brown on one occasion. Captain 
Aaron U. Stephens was lying on a cot in the same room. I 
was told that Brown had ordered out of his room a Presby- 
terian minister named Lowrey when he had proposed to offer 
prayer. He had also said to my first colleague, Rev. James 
H. March, "You do not know the meaning of the word Chris- 
tianity. Of course I regard you as a gentleman, but only as 
a heathen gentleman." I was advised to say nothing to him 
about prayer. He had told other visitors that he wanted no 
minister to pray wath him who would not be willing to die 
to free a slave. I was not conscious that I was ready for 
martyrdom from Brown's standpoint. I have never been 
anxious to die to save the life of any body. My life is as 
valuable to me and my family as any other man's is to him 
and his family. But young as I was I hated American 
slavery. I was a "boy minister" of a great anti-slavery de- 
nomination of Christians. For more than a century the 
Methodist Episcopal Church has carried in its Disciplines its 
printed testimony against slavery. It is to-day the largest 
fully organized anti-slavery society on earth. I would have 
gladly offered prayer in Brown's room at Charlestown if an 
honorable opportunity had been afforded. 

At his preliminary examination before five justices. Col- 
onel Davenport presiding, Brown said: "Virginians! I did 
not ask for quarter at the time I was taken. I did not ask to 
have my life spared. Your governor assured me of a fair 
trial. If you seek my blood you can have it at any time 
without this mockery of a trial. I have no counsel. I have 
not been able to advise with any one. I know nothing of 
the feelings of my fellow prisoners and am utterly unable to 
attend to my own defense. If a fair trial is to be allowed 
there are mitigating circumstances to be urged. But, if we 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



13 



are forced with a mere form, a trial for execution, you might 
spare yourselves that trouble. I am ready for my fate." 

Two very able Virginia attorneys were assigned as a 
matter of State form as counsel for Brown. They were 
Honorable Charles J. Faulkner of jNIartinsburg, afterwards 
United States Envoy Extraordinary to France, and Judge 
Green, Ex-Mayor of Cbarlestown. The county grand jury 
indicted Brown on three separate charges: first, conspiracy 
with slaves for purposes of insurrection ; second, treason 
against the commonwealth of Virginia ; third, murder in the 
first degree. Air. Faulkner withdrew from the case and J\Ir, 
Lawson Botts took his place. :Mr. Samuel Chilton a learned 
lawyer of Washington, D. C, and Judge Henry Griswold of 
Ohio, another distinguished attorney, volunteered their serv- 
ices as counsel for John Brown and were accepted. Some of 
Brown's friends sent an excellent young lawyer named George 
H. Hoyt from Boston, as additional counsel. These attorneys 
made an able defense, whatever may have been their private 
opinion as to Brown's guilt or innocence. The prosecuting at- 
torney for the State of Virginia was Andrew Hunter, an ex- 
ceptionally brilliant orator and able lawyer. He was a courtly 
and commanding speaker. He was gifted with a rich and 
powerfnl voice. After the indictment of Brown by the court 
of justices, the prosecuting attorney of Jefferson county, Mr. 
Charles B. Harding left the prosecution almost exclusively 
to Mr. Andrew Hunter, who represented the State. So too, 
after the arrival of Brown's chosen outside counsel. Judge 
Green and Mr. Lawson Botts withdrew, in good taste, from 
his defense. 

At the regular trial Brown's counsel requested a post- 
ponement on account of the prisoner's health. But Dr. 
Mason, his physician, attested the physical ability of his 
patient to undergo the strain. The State was spending al- 
most a thousand dollars a day for military guards and other 
items. AMien Brown's counsel presented telegrams from his 
relatives asking for delay imtil they could forward proofs of 
his insanity, Brown said, "I will say, if the court will allow 
me, that I look on this as a miserable artifice and trick of 



14 THE RAID OP JOHN BROWN" 



those who ought to take a different course in regard to me 
if they take any at all. I view it with contempt more than 
otherwise. I am perfectly unconscious of insanity and I re- 
ject, so far as I am capable, any attempts to interfere in my 
behalf on that score." 

On the last day of the trial, October 3Tst. after six 
hours of argument by Hunter, Chilton and Griswold, the 
jury delivered the following verdict: "Guilty of treason, 
and of conspiring and advising with slaves and others to rebel ; 
and of murder in the first degree." On Wednes- 
day, November the 2nd, he was brought into court to 
receive his sentence. The County Clerk, Robert H. Brown, 
asked: " Have you anything to say why sentence should 
not be passed on you?" Brown, leaning on a cane, slowly 
arose from his chair and with plaintive emphasis addressed 
Judge Parker as follows : 

"I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. 
In the first place I deny everything but what I have all 
along admitted, the design on my part to free the slaves. 
I certainly intended to have made a clean thing of 
that matter as I did last winter when I went into 
Missouri and took slaves without the snapping of a gun on 
either side, moved them through the country and finally left 
them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing 
again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. T never 
did intend murder or treason, or the destruction of property, 
or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion or to make insurrec- 
tion. I have another objection and that is that it is unjust 
that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the 
manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly 
proved, for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the 
greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this 
case, — had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, 
the intelligent, the so-called great ; or in behalf of any of 
their friends, either father, mother, sister, brother, wife or 
children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed 
what I have in this interference, it would have been all right 
and everv man in this court would have deemed it an act 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 15 



worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court 
acknowledges as I suppose the validity of the law of God. 
I see a ,book kissed here which I suppose is the Bibk, or 
at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things, 
whatsoever I would that men should do to me I should do 
even unto them. It teaches me further to 'Remember them 
that are in bonds as bound with them.' I endeavored to act 
up. to that instruction. I say that I am yet too young to 
understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe 
that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always ad- 
mitted freely I have done, in behalf of His despised poor 
was not wrong but right. Now if it is deemed necessary 
that T should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends 
of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of 
my children and with the blood of millions in this slave coun- 
try whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and unjust 
enactments, I submit. So let it be done. 

"Let me say one word further. I feel entirely satisfied with 
the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all 
the circumstances it has been more generous than I expected. 
But I feel no consciousness of guilt. I never had any design 
against the life of any person, nor any disposition to commit 
treason or excite slaves to rebellion or make any general in- 
surrection. I never encouraged any man to do so but always 
discouraged any idea of the kind. 

"Let me say a word in regard to the statements made 
by some of those connected with me. I hear it has been stated 
by some of them that I induced them to join me. But the 
contrary is true. I do not say this to injure them, l)ut as re- 
gards their weakness. There is not one of them but joined 
mc of his own accord and the greater ])arfof them at their own 
expense. A number of them I never saw, and never had a 
word of conversation with, till the day they came to me and 
that was for the purpose I have stated. Now I am done." 

Brown's statement was not exactly sustained l:)y the 
facts. Why had he collected the Sharpe's rifles, the pikes, 
the kegs of powder, many thousands of caps and much war- 
like material at the Kennedy farm? Why did he and other 



16 THE RAID OP JOHN BROWN 

armed men, break into the United States Armory and Arsenal, 
make portholes in the engine house, shoot and kill citizens 
and surround their own imprisoned persons with prominent 
men as hostages? But everybody in the court house be- 
lieved the old man when he said that he did everything with 
a solitary motive, the liberation of the slaves. 

Judge Parker could, under his oath, do nothing else than 
to sentence him to be hung. He fixed the date for Friday, 
the second of December. Brown's counsel appealed to the 
Supreme Court of Virginia. Its five judges unanimously 
sustained the action of the Jefferson county court. 

Brown was hung on the bright and beautiful morning of 
December 2nd at 11:15 o'clock. At his request Andrew 
Hunter wrote his will. He then visited his fellow prisoners 
who were all executed at a later date. He rode to his death 
between Sheriff Campbell and Captain Avis in a furniture 
wagon drawn by two white horses. He did not ride seated 
on his coiifin as some of his chief eulogists have affirmed. 
The wagon was escorted to the scaffold by State military 
companies. No citizens were allowed near to the jail. 
Hence he did not kiss any negro baby as he emerged from 
his prison, as Mr. ^^'hittier has described in a poem on the 
event and as artists have memorialized in paintings. The 
utter absurdity of such an incident occurring under such sur- 
roundings any Virginian will see. Avis, Campbell and 
Hunter publicly denied it. But the story will doubtless 
have immortality. In one of the companies of soldiers 
walked the actor John Wilkes Booth, the infamous assassin 
of Abraham Lincoln. At the head of the Lexington cadets 
walked Professor Thomas Jefferson Jackson, who became 
an able Confederate General and is best known to the world 
as "Stonewall Jackson." As the party neared the gallows 
Brown gazed on the glorious panorama of mountain and 
landscape scenery. Then he said : "This is a beautiful 
country." He wore a black slouch hat with the front tipped 
jup. Reaching the scaffold the numerous State troops 
formed into a hollow square. Brown mounted the platform 
without trepidation. Standing on the drop he said to the 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 17 



sheriff and his assistants: "Gentlemen! I thank you for 
3-our kindness to me. I am ready at any time. Do not 
keep me Avaiting." The drop fell and in ten minutes Dr. 
]\Iason pronounced him dead. That evening- ]\Irs. Brown 
and her friends received the casket at Harper's Ferry and 
accompanied it to the old home at North Elba, N. Y. His 
funeral, as reported by the metropolitan papers, took place 
there six days after his execution. An immense concourse 
was in attendance. The conspicuous and brilliant orator, 
AVendell Phillips, delivered the address. He closed it with 
these words: 'Tn this cottage he girded' himself and went 
forth to battle. Fuller success than his heart ever dreamed 
of God had granted him. He sleeps in the blessings of the 
crushed and the poor. Men believe more firmly in virtue 
now that such a man has lived." Personally I remained in 
Virginia. 

On the day that Brown was hung Martyr Services, as 
thev were called, were held in many Northern localities. At 
Concord, Dr. Edmund Sears read a poem in which are these 
stanzas : 

"Not any spot, six feet by two 

A\^ill hold a man like thee : 
John Brown will tramp the shaking earth 

From Blue Ridge to the sea 
Till the strong angel comes at length 

And opes each dungeon door : 
And God's Great Charter holds and waves 

O'er all the humble poor. 

And then the hum])le poor may come ■ 

In that far distant day. 
And from the felon's nameless grave 

Will brush the leaves away : 
And gray old men will point the spot 

Beneath the pine tree's shade, 
As children ask with streaming eyes 

\\'here old John Brown was laid." 



18 THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 

Before he was executed many threatening communica- 
tions were received by the \'irginia State and Jefferson 
County officers. Large numl^ers of E. C. Stedman's poem, 
entitled "John Brown of Ossawattamie," were scattered 
about Charlestown. One stanza reads as follows: 

"But A'irginians ! Don't do it, for I tell you 

that the flagon. 
Filled with blood of Old Brown's offspring, 

was first poured by Southern hands ; 
And each drop from Old Brown's life A'eins, 

like the red gore of the dragon, 
]\Iay spring up, a vengeful Fury, hissing through 

your slave-worn lands : 
And Old Brown, 
Ossowattamie Brown, 
May trouble you more than ever. 
AMien you've nailed his coffin down.'' 

AMiether they be from the North or the South, fair- 
minded men, who are thoroughly conversant with the history 
of this raid, can hardly cherish any doubt concerning the 
turpitude of the invasion, the fairness of Brown's trial and the 
justice of his conviction and execution. He fell under the 
direction of a misguided conscience. The noble endowment 
that philosophers call conscience, that gives its verdicts as to 
the moral merit or demerit of actions and affections, was 
strangely warped in Brown's intense and brave character. 
The possession of this faculty of conscience is the massive 
foundation of all human responsibility. Illustrations of the 
moral enormities that a perverted conscience can perpetrate 
are manifold along the pages of sacred and secular history. 

When Jesus looked down the aisles of the future, He 
said to His disciples that the men who would finally transfig- 
ure them into martyrs would murder them in the belief tha: 
they were rendering acceptable service to God. 

Paul declared that he regarded himself as meeting the 
divine approval when he was persecuting and murdering 
the primitive Christians. 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 19 



AVhen the officers of the Spanish Inquisition saw the 
agonies of the victims who refused to renounce their relig- 
ious creeds they joyfull}^ exclaimed, "Let God be glorified." 

Charles the Ninth of France said he was conscientious 
in ordering the Saint Bartholomew massacre that resulted in 
the murder in French cities of tens of thousands of Chris- 
tian Hugenots. 

The Bloody Queen, ]\Iary Tudor, said she had a pure 
conscience when she sent to the scaiTold the learned and gen- 
tle young Ex-Queen Lady Jane Gre3^ Thousands of crim- 
inals have sheltered their crimes in the temple of Conscience. 

The trend of Brown's constant defence was that he obey- 
ed his conscience. His lawless conduct, the death of many 
of his party and the murder of Virginia citizens gave him 
verv little apparent intellectual unrest. He sowed to the 
wind and reaped the logical harvest, if it is the appropriate 
word, the whirlwind. 

Brown's high Calvinism bordered on fatalism. Oliver 
Cromwell never believed more radically in the foreordina- 
tion of all human actions than did he. When questioned con- 
cerning the failure of this invasion he replied : "All of our act- 
ions, even all of the follies that led to this disaster, were de- 
creed to happen ages before the world was made." AMien 
Judge Russell visited him he said: 'T know that the very 
errors bv which my scheme was marred were decreed before 
the world was made. I had no more to do with the course I 
pursued than a shot leaving a cannon has to do with the spot 
where it shall fall." 

It is when patriotic men read the story of "John Brown's 
Raid" by the torches of President Lincoln's early election, the 
Civil \\"ar and the Emancipation of all American slaves, that 
thev seem to become blind to the terrible criminal features 
of the invasion and look only at the national results and the 
magnificient courage, benevolent motives and supreme self- 
sacrifice of this martyr, ^vfultitudes of \'isionary men regard 
him as a divinely a])pointed John the Baptist raised up to 
usher in the da\- of jihysical freedom for every slax'e on 
American soil and their posterity to the end of time. They 



20 THE RAID OF JOHX BROWX 

claim that in this instance "The End has justified the Cleans." 
His raid made the Xorth solid agrainst the slave system and 
the South as solid against anti-slavery theories and agitators. 
Before the Brown raid the vote for John C. Fremont, the Re- 
publican candidate for President, was 1341000. James Buch- 
anan had 496000 majority. The year after the raid Abraham 
Lincoln received 1886000 votes for President and liad 401000 
majority over Stephen A. Douglas, when the Soutli voted for 
another Democrat. Fremont had 114 votes in the Elec- 
toral College. Lincohi had 180. Under his presidency the 
emancipation of every slave on the national soil took place. 
The nations of Europe learned for the first time the imp.^rtant 
lesson that the United States was able to maintain its nation- 
al unity. This raid beyond question hasten .d in the Civil 
AA'ar. T have seen Federal regiments marching on to battle 
enthusiasticallv singing: 

"John Brown's body lies a mould'ring in the grave, 

But his soul is marching on." 

A few weeks after Brown's execution \'ictor Hugo said, 
"AMiat the South slew last December was not John Brown 
but slaverv.*' His statement developed into a colossal histori- 
cal truth. The great statesman, orator and senator. John J. 
Ingalls of Kansas, closed an oration with these remarkable 
words : 

"Carlyle says that when any great change in human so- 
ciety is to be wrought God raises up men to whom that 
change is made to appear as the one thing needful and ab- 
solutely indispensable. Scholars, orators, poets, philanthro- 
pists, play their parts, but the crisis comes at last through 
.some one who is stigmatized as a fanatic by his contempor- 
aries, and whom the supporters of the systems he assails 
crucify between theives or gibbet as a felon. The man who 
is not afraid to die for an idea is the most potential and con- 
vincing advocate. 

"Already the great intellectual leaders of the movement 
for the abolition of slavery are dead. The student of the 
future will exhume their orations, arguments and state pa- 
pers, as a part of the subterranean history of the epoch. 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWX 21 



/ 



The antiquarian will dig- up their remains from the alluvial 
drift of the period, and construe their relations to the great 
events in which they were actors. But the three men of this 
era who will loom forever against the remotest horizon of 
time, as the pyramids against the voiceless desert, or moun- 
tain peaks over the subordinate plains, are Abraham Lincoln, 
Ulvsses S. Grant and old John Brown of Ossowattamie." 

Senator Ingalls well knew that Brown had no such in- 
tellectual massiveness, or splendid culture, as had Webster. 
Clay, Tefiferson, Sumner, and many other eminent Ameri- 
cans. He referred to the majesty of personal achievements. 
From this standpoint men like Garabaldi, Morse. Ilarriman. 
Edison, Roosevelt and Cook,_ the Arctic explorer have been ; 
great. Brown's life was a perpetual sacrifice for the annihila- 
tion of American slavery. \^ery defective as a military lead- 
er he was always ready to do. dare and die to assist in this 
work. Even today tens of thousands of educated men re- 
gard him as a monomaniac concerning the abolition of 
slaverv. For many years, in the state of Kansas, he had per- 
mitted his own life, and the life of each of his sons, to be 
in continual peril that they might assist in placing Kansas 
in the constellation of free States. ]Men like Gerrit Smith 
and John L. Stearns financed his schemes from their wealth. 
Men like Henrv \\'ard Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
George B. Cheever. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phil- 
lips and Theodore Parker, delivered eulogies on Brown af- 
ter he had been hung. They most eloquently denounced slav- 
ery from pulpits and platforms; but they lived in the lime- 
light of oratorical popularity and flourished amidst luxurious 
ease. To Brown's immortal credit be it said that he gave 
domestic security, his humble fortune, his perillous work, 
the lives of his cherished sons and his own blood and life for 
the anti-slavery opinions that were anchored in his soul. His 
prison letters to many friends are full of intrepidity, submis- 
sion to the divine providence and heroic anticij^ations of im- 
mortal blessedness. Ten minutes liefc^rc he left his jail cell 
lor tile gallows he handed to a prison official a sheet of paj">er 
on which he had written these words: "I, John Brown, am 



22 THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be 
purged away but with blood, I had, as I now think, vainly 
flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might 
be done." 

His surpassing- bravery and self-sacrihcing candor pro- 
foundly impressed eminent Mrginians. Governor Henry 
A. \A^ise said: "He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw, 
cut and thrust ; and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of 
clear head, of courage, fortitude and simple ingenuousness. 
He is cool, collected, indomitable; and it is but just to him 
to sav that he was humane to his prisoners. He is a fanatic, 
but firm, and truthful and intelligent." Colonel Lewis W. 
A\'ashington and Captain John E. P. Dangerfield bore testi- 
mony to his courage. 

Brown's wonderful moral heroism became resplendent 
after Judge Richard Parker had sentenced him to death. 
Many of his letters to his friends, collected and published by 
]\Ir. F. B. Sanford, would have done honor to the pen of Paul. 
He was exultant from the standpoint of a hapi)y spiritual 
experience and triumphant as he gazed beyond this mortal 
life. In one of his last letters he wrote these words: "I sleep 
as peacefully as an infant, or if I am wakeful glorious thoughts 
come to me entertaining my mind. I do not believe I shall 
deny ni}^ Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, in this prison or on 
the scaffold. But I should do so if I denied my principles 
against slavery." Surely he must have l.'>een sincere as he 
faced eternity. 

As earlv as 1820 John Ouincy Adams said of the over- 
throw of American slavery. "The ol)ject is vast in its com- 
pass, awful in its prospects and sublime and beautiful in its 
issues. A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacri- 
ficed." John Brown, along illegal and criminal lines, ])laced 
before the world such a life -and death. He saw clearly what 
American statesmen of his period saw but dimly. Beyond 
all question he died as emphatically for the overthrow of 
slavery as Paul died for the honor of Christianity. Three 
of his faxorite books were the life stories of men of g-reat 



THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 23 

achievements: — "The Life of Oliver Cnmiwell," "The Life 
of Marco Bozarris," and "The Life of William Wallace." 

Some rears ago, in an oration delivered at Harper's Ferry, 
the distinguished freedman and orator, the late Frederick 
Douglass, said: "If John Brown did not end the war that 
ended slavery he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. 
If we look over the dates, places and men for which 
this honor is claimed we shall find that not Carolina, but 
\^irginia ; not Fort Sumter, but Harper's Ferry and the 
United States Arsenal ; not Major Anderson, but John Brown, 
began the war that ended American slavery and made this 
a free rei)ublic. L'ntil this blow was struck the prospect was 
dim. shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was 
one of words, votes and compromises, ^^l^en John Brown 
stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared, the time for 
compromise was gone, the armed hosts stood face to face 
over the chasm of a broken Union and the clash of arms w^as 
at hand." 

And let it be remembered that when Brown had told 
Douglass the details of his proposed invasion at Harper's 
Ferry, Douglass begged him to abandon his plans and assured 
him that they would end. as they did, in untold disaster. 

'J'he chief authors who have written concerning John 
Brown and his invasion w^ere not in A^irginia during the forty- 
four days intervening between the raid and his execution. 
They were destitute of any personal knowledge of the facts. 
They were bitter enemies of the South and most intense ad- 
mirers of the intrepid man executed at Charlestown. Their 
narratives are replete with errors and contain much romance. 
'J'hey are, generally, saturated with misrepresentation of the 
\'irginia people and are burdened with eulogistic apologies for 
Brown's conduct in \'irginia. Because I was on the ground 
and saw things as they occurred; because I have kept in 
touch with Brown literature; and because I am in love with 
the Truth I believe that my story is worthy of j)ublic con- 
fidence. 

I have known X'irginians, personally, for over liftv vears. 
My long career, as a minister of Christ, was begun among 



24 THE RAID OF JOHN BROWN 



them. Thev have not deserved the traduction Brown's eulo- 
gists have heaped on them. His unfortunate execution was 
the logical result of his criminal and bloody raid. The \'ir- 
ginia people have been noble in chivalry, bounteous in hos- 
pitality, sublime in kindness of heart and life and models of 
high social and moral purity. 

Spartacus led the way for the destruction of Roman 
slavery. John Brown performed a similar service for the 
American slaves. He mingled in his strange character fanat- 
icism and courage — eccentricity and a prophetical msight into 
future events — a warped conscience and a sublime martyr 
heroism. But whether in safety or peril, at home or in pris- 
on, in battle or on the scalTold. this mysterious man intensely 
cherished the conviction that Joanna Baillie imbedded into 
poetry : 

"The strength of man sinks in the hour of trial. 
But there doth live a power that for the battle 
Girdeth the weak." 



^OV 291909 



NOV 29 \m 



